Hudson Valley physicians ally with Mount Sinai

A metropolitan health system formed less than a year ago by Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan is extending its reach into the Hudson Valley through a new partnership with a large multispecialty group medical practice in Orange County.

Officials at Mount Sinai Health System and Crystal Run Healthcare in Middletown on Wednesday jointly announced their Mount Sinai-Crystal Run Alliance for Healthcare Transformation. The partners said they will seek to integrate clinical services and finances to achieve what they called their “triple aim” of better care, better health and lower cost.

Crystal Run, however, will remain an independent physician-owned partnership. Founded in 1996 by Dr. Hal Teitelbaum, the partnership has grown to include more than 300 physicians practicing at about 20 locations in the Hudson Valley and Catskill region. In 2012, it was among the first health care organizations in the nation to participate as an Accountable Care Organization in the federal government’s Medicare Shared Savings Program.

Mount Sinai and Crystal Run will share and implement best practices, invest and share financial and intellectual resources, strengthen provider networks and employ innovative approaches to create health care value, the partners said in their announcement.

The regional alliance follows the merger last September of Mount Sinai Medical Center and the former Continuum Health Partners, owner of five community hospitals in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. The Mount Sinai Health System formed in the merger has about 36,000 employees and about 6,600 physicians at the system’s seven hospital campuses in the boroughs and approximately 45 ambulatory care practices in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island. Its physicians are affiliated with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side.

Teitelbaum, Crystal Run’s managing partner and CEO, in a statement said the health care transformation pursued by the new alliance partners “refers to the evolution — some would say revolution — in health care in which the emphasis is no longer on visits, procedures and other transactions, but rather on health outcomes for both individual patients and the entire community.”

“Sometimes referred to as value-based care, care transformation is about compensating physicians, hospitals and other providers for what we successfully accomplish for our patients, rather than for services we provide to our patients,” he said.

Extolling Mount Sinai’s “exceptional legacy of innovation, groundbreaking research and outstanding patient care and commitment,” Teitelbaum said the alliance of two strong organizations committed to transforming health care “will be nothing short of game-changing.”

As managing editor of the Business Journals, John Golden directs news coverage of Westchester and Fairfield counties and the Hudson Valley region. He was an award-winning upstate columnist and feature writer before joining the Business Journal in 2007. He is the author of “Northern Drift: Sketches on the New York Frontier,” a collection of his regional journalism.